It has issued a DVD which it will target at a number of developed economies, but is making a particular effort to ‘seduce potential US investors’.

The DVD, codenamed ‘Nouvelle France’, is the product of government agency AFII (Agence Francais pour les Investissements Internationaux). The move aims to deflate the highly publicised tension between the countries as a result of the US-led war in Iraq.

According to the AFII, it wants to ‘correct false ideas conveyed about France’. The DVD claims ‘there are more strike days in Britain and the US’ than in France, and that US manufacturers such as Ford have increasingly turned to French sub-contractors in recent years.

It also notes that ‘with only one per cent of the world’s population, France is home to ten per cent of the 100 global corporations that are leaders in their particular sectors’.